The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part B.: From Henry III. to Richard III.
David Hume · en
{1398.} Both king and parliament met in the same dispositions at
Shrewsbury. So anxious was Richard for the security of these acts, that
he obliged the lords and commons to swear anew to them on the cross
of Canterbury;[**] and he soon after procured a bull from the pope,
by which they were, as he imagined, perpetually secured and
established.[***] The parliament, on the other hand, conferred on him
for life the duties on wool, wool-fells, and leather, and granted him,
besides, a subsidy of one tenth and a half, and one fifteenth and
a half. They also reversed the attainder of Tresilian and the other
judges; and, with the approbation of the present judges, declared the
answers for which these magistrates had been impeached to be just and
legal:[****] and they carried so far their retrospect as to reverse,
on the petition of Lord Spenser, earl of Glocester, the attainder
pronounced against the two Spensers in the reign of Edward II.[*****]
The ancient history of England is nothing but a catalogue of reversals:
every thing is in fluctuation and movement: one faction is continually
undoing what was established by another: and the multiplied oaths
which each party exacted for the security of the present acts, betray a
perpetual consciousness of their instability.
The parliament, before they were dissolved, elected a committee of
twelve lords and six commoners,[******] whom they invested with the
whole power both of lords and commons, and endowed with full authority
to finish all business which had been laid before the houses, and which
they had not had leisure to bring to a conclusion.[*******]
* Cotton, p. 370, 371
** Cotton, p. 371.
** Walsing. p. 355.
**** Statutes at large, 21 Rich. II.
***** Cotton, p. 372.
****** The names of the commissioners were, the dukes of
Lancaster, York, Albemarle, Surrey, and Exeter, the marquis
of Dorset, the earls of Marche, Salisbury, Northumberland,
Glocester, Winchester, and Wiltshire; John Bussey, Henry
Green, John Russel, Robert Teyne, Henry Chelmeswicke, and
John Golofre. It is to be remarked, that the duke of
Lancaster always concurred with the rest in all their
proceedings, even in the banishment of his son, which was
afterwards so much complained of.
******* Cotton, p. 372. Walsing. p. 355.
This was an unusual concession; and though it was limited in the object,
might, either immediately or as a precedent, have proved dangerous to
the constitution; but the cause of that extraordinary measure was
an event singular and unexpected, which engaged the attention of the
parliament.